Review-Dirty Projectors, No Kids, Brian Seeger at Sala Rossa

Dirty Projectors with No Kids and Brian Seeger at Sala Rossa in Montreal, March 31st. Photos by Marilis Cardinal.

Brian Seeger opened the show with solo guitar jams. He seemed to be quite used to the awkwardness of playing sloppy pop songs in a large, and largely empty, concert hall. I mean sloppy in a good way. Brian keeps busy, playing plenty of opening slots in various forms at venues around town. Catch him on April 27th at le Cagibi for the Stillepost fundraiser, Montreal Chose. Also check out some of the beautifully packaged cassettes by other bands on his folk/noise label, Pink Triforce.

No Kids are a new project from members of Vancouver’s P:ano. Singer Nick Krgovich works his falsetto with unabashedly soulful melodies that give the group a distinctly R&B feel. They definitely satisfy the current taste for flourishy, tropical casiofunk, but Justin Kellam’s robotic drumming and a charmingly stilted live show make for fun-through-restraint that similar acts lack.

Dirty Projectors really need to be seen. They’re the most successful example of recent experimental music with influences in free jazz, African rhythm, and prog rock. Band leader, Dave Longstreth lurches about on stage rallying the smiles and timing cues of guitarist, Amber Coffman and bassist, Angel Deradoorian. The trio are exceptional guitar players and together they build the multi-layered harmonic swells of Longstreth’s demanding compositions. By the end of their set (and one song encore), drummer Brian Mcomber looked sufficiently abused and the audience left with their mouths either wide open or tightly shut.

A video from their show at The Peacock during SXSW 2007. The sound is bad, but you get a sense of how they perform live.